South Korean FSS is upgrading its "VISTA" platform with AI to automatically detect illegal crypto market manipulation

South Korea’s authorities are continuing to crack down on cybercrime this 2026, with its Financial Supervisory Service integrating AI into its systems to detect suspicious market activities as they occur.

The South Korean Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has integrated artificial intelligence trained on known market scams into its system, enabling it to detect suspicious transactions as they occur and create visual maps detailing the transactions. 

South Korea’s FSS will use AI to fight crypto market manipulation

The South Korean Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has officially announced that it will be integrating AI into its Virtual Assets Intelligence System for Trading Analysis “VISTA” system. 

VISTA is an internal platform designed to monitor and analyze unfair trading in the virtual asset market. It was originally developed by the FSS’s internal staff using the Python programming language. 

The FSS noted that criminals are becoming more sophisticated, often using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to conduct high-frequency trading (HFT) that can manipulate prices in milliseconds, and so transitioning from a manual investigation process to a fully automated AI-driven detection model is the best way to stay ahead of them.

The FSS installed two additional high-performance servers equipped with advanced CPUs and GPUs in December 2025 to allow for distributed data processing. 

Most important for the VISTA upgrade is the development of the “Phase 1 Automated Detection Algorithm.” 

In the past, FSS investigators had to manually search through mountains of transaction data provided by exchanges for “suspicious sections” of trading where prices moved unnaturally. This slow, labor-intensive process often lagged weeks or months behind the actual crime.

The new AI algorithm automatically extracts suspicious periods of price manipulation due to its training on past data of known market scams such as wash trading, spoofing, and “pump and dump” schemes. 

Once the AI flags a suspicious transaction, it generates a visual map of the trading behavior that allows investigators to see exactly how a manipulator moved funds and influenced the order book. 

This visual evidence is crucial for the legal process, as it provides a clear, undeniable trail of evidence that can be used in court to prove “intent” to manipulate the market. With the addition of GPU-accelerated servers, the FSS will be able to perform these complex visual and statistical analyses across multiple tokens and exchanges simultaneously.

How will South Korea’s AI crypto surveillance work?

South Korea’s Virtual Asset User Protection Act, which went into effect on July 19, 2024, mandates that virtual asset service providers (VASPs), such as Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone, must monitor for suspicious transactions and report them to the authorities. The FSS verifies these reports and conducts deeper investigations.

Since the 2024 Act took effect, the FSS has been under pressure to deliver results. There have been several high-profile cases involving “altcoins” that experienced massive, unexplained price spikes shortly after listing.

VISTA is built to be specific to the Korean market and the data formats used by domestic exchanges in order to protect retail investors from the “whales” and bot operators who manipulate prices. 

Over time, machine learning models that can predict potential manipulation and allow the FSS to issue warnings to exchanges in real-time are expected to be developed. 

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